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Chapter 57
第五十七章
At that moment we were interrupted by the appearance of Madame Coutras, who had been paying visits. She came in, like a ship in full sail, an imposing creature, tall and stout, with an ample bust and an obesity girthed in alarmingly by straight-fronted corsets. She had a bold hooked nose and three chins. She held herself upright. She had not yielded for an instant to the enervating charm of the tropics, but contrariwise was more active, more worldly, more decided than anyone in a temperate clime would have thought it possible to be. She was evidently a copious talker, and now poured forth a breathless stream of anecdote and comment. She made the conversation we had just had seem far away and unreal.
這時候庫特拉斯太太看朋友回來，我們的談話暫時被打斷了。庫特拉斯太太象一只帆篷張得鼓鼓的小船，精神抖擻地闖了進(jìn)來。她是個又高大又肥胖的女人，胸部膨脝飽滿，卻緊緊勒著束胸。她生著一個大鷹鉤鼻，下巴耷拉著三圈肥肉，身軀挺得筆直。盡管熱帶氣候一般總是叫人慵懶無力，對她卻絲毫沒有影響。相反地，庫特拉斯太太又精神又世故，行動敏捷果斷，在這種叫人昏昏欲睡的地帶里，誰也想不到她有這么充沛的精力。此外，她顯然還是個非常健談的人；自踏進(jìn)屋門的一分鐘起，她就談?wù)撨@個、品評那個，話語滔滔不絕。我們剛才那場談話在庫特拉斯太太進(jìn)屋以后顯得非常遙遠(yuǎn)、非常不真實了。
Presently Dr. Coutras turned to me.
過了一會兒，庫特拉斯醫(yī)生對我說：
"I still have in my bureau the picture that Strickland gave me," he said. "Would you like to see it?"
“思特里克蘭德給我的那幅畫一直掛在我的書房里。你要去看看嗎？”
"Willingly."
“我很想看看。”
We got up, and he led me on to the verandah which surrounded his house. We paused to look at the gay flowers that rioted in his garden.
我們站起來，醫(yī)生領(lǐng)著我走到室外環(huán)繞著這幢房子的陽臺上。我們在外面站了一會兒，看了看他花園里爭奇斗妍的絢爛的鮮花。
"For a long time I could not get out of my head the recollection of the extraordinary decoration with which Strickland had covered the walls of his house," he said reflectively.
“看了思特里克蘭德用來裝飾他房屋四壁的那些奇異的畫幅，很久很久我老是忘不掉，”他沉思地說。
